Spanish Vanilla Cake

I'm not going to lie, I was a bit gutted when I saw this month's We Should Cocoa Challenge set by Choclette. The secret ingredient for April is marzipan. I loathe marzipan - the flavour, the smell, everything! However the key word in the title is 'challenge' and I was determined to try baking with it - maybe it would change my mind about the evil almond paste. I trawled the internet to find a recipe which combined marzipan and chocolate and eventually came across this one for Spanish Vanilla Cake on cooksunited.co.uk. I was with Mr CB when buying the ingredients - I didn't realise that he too has a shared dislike of marzipan, even commenting that he couldn't have a packet in the house. He is prone to exaggeration so I did ignore this comment and buy it anyway!

I ordered a bundt tin specially for this cake but it unfortunately hasn't arrived yet so I had to make do with a normal springform tin. I really like the fact that this mixture was so light due to the beaten egg whites and it does result in a great springy cake. It is very similar to those little madeleine type cakes you get in bags in Spanish (a clue in the name of the cake maybe?!) supermarkets - a little bland but strangely moreish at the same time. I would prefer this cake without the marzipan - while the flavour isn't overpowering it is definitely there. Mr CB however did manage a whole slice....

The Recipe

250g marzipan

150g sugar

1 vanilla pod

pinch salt

1 egg

6 eggs, separated

150g plain flour

50g cornflour

60g dark chocolate, roughly chopped + extra for decorating

1. Grease a springform tin and preheat the oven to 190c.

2. Whisk the marzipan with half of the sugar, the scraped out vanilla seeds, salt, egg and 6 egg yolks. Stir until creamy.

3. Beat the egg whites with the remaining sugar until stiff and fold into the mixture.

4. Sieve the flour and cornflour over the batter and fold in. Finally fold in the chopped chocolate.

5. Pour the dough into the tin and bake for 60 minutes.